Rewind
by Dudekmc123
Summary: "Don't wake up. He doesn't care if he's unconscious and dreaming this all up anymore."


A/N: _Hey all. So, long story short I saw BH6 and thought wouldn't it be cool to write a fanfic for this? And somehow this popped out. It was a challenge but I had fun writing it and hopefully you'll enjoy reading it! :)_

_Hopefully, I can update soon. We'll see! Also, shoutout to the friend that pushed me to finish it, this probably wouldn't have been posted if it wasn't for you ;)_

* * *

><p>Eyes watering, he cannot even bring himself to blink.<p>

Who would ever think it possible.

He stares and stares and stares, until his eyes itch unbearably. Until they water and blur out his surroundings to beige, blue, and black. The figures on the stand become nothing more than blobs, dots, nearly unidentifiable as they walk along the stage.

He can still hear though. Motionless in his chair, their voices echo loud in his ears, booming with pride and success they talk about atoms, thermodynamics, and favorability. How they figured out all the quantum mechanics and the mathematical equations. The more they talk, the louder their voices seem to become. Until they ring so sharp in his ears that they reach the point of white noise. Inconsistent, a jumble of sounds in the background.

There's something pushing hard against his chest. Hands, shoving and pressing, like those of angry bot fighters, cornering him against a wall for cheating the system. They lay folded atop of his sternum, pushing, pushing, hard against his ribcage. His mouth opens but no air flows out. Eyes widening, he tries to push back, tries to push forward, get these hands off his chest, but they are too strong and hold him in place.

Helpless, his eyes are glued to the stage as the presenters keep talking.

He's stuck in limbo.

Then there's a drumming, a drumming that grows louder and louder until it breaks through the white noise barrier. Clapping. The audience is clapping and, just like that, the barrier is broken. The hands disappear and he falls forward, hard.

He takes a deep breath in, looking over the edge of the back of his chair.

"Hiro, you okay?"

The voice prompts him to look back up and he meets eyes with a familiar face. It takes him a moment to recognize its Honey Lemon, her pink glasses lowered in concern.

"Yes." He hears rather than feels himself say. "Fine."

She holds his gaze for a while, skeptical, before a professor taps her on the shoulder and her attention is drawn away to respond.

He somehow manages to turn around in his seat, taking a drink out of a cup of water as the round of questions begin. He stares at the folded blue program before him the name of the presentation jumping out at him in bold.

Optimization of Electron Flow and Configuration to Prepare Spatial and Temporal Transportation.

Who would ever think it possible.

* * *

><p>Baymax greets him when he comes back home. Hiro gives a wave before dropping his rucksack and heading towards the shower.<p>

He goes through the motions, brushing his teeth, washing his face, and tucking himself into bed. He hears Baymax shuffling around for a bit, probably moving his bag out of the way where he's thrown it down beside the bed, always watching out for his safety ever since he tripped over it one morning.

He can't sleep and spends forever staring at the ceiling.

"My readings indicate that you have high levels of brain activity." Baymax eventually cuts in, shaking Hiro from his musings. "Your body is very exhausted, Hiro. You should get some sleep."

Hiro rolls away from his robot sitting his in charging station mumbling. "I'm trying."

"Perhaps you should stop thinking, it appears to be causing you distress."

"It's not that easy Baymax." He responds, covering his face with a hand.

For a moment there is silence and then Baymax inquires, as if he'd been thinking about the subject, "Did something happen at the symposium?"

Hiro's breath catches in his throat.

He doesn't know how Baymax is capable of doing this. Being able to read him so effortlessly like a close friend, or family member. Then again, Baymax has been with him for a while now and he has a very clear record of his health and emotional states. It's only lead to further accuracy and predictions on Hiro's well being. He doesn't know if he hates it or loves it sometimes.

"Yes."

"What seems to be the trouble?"

Hiro inhales deep before responding simply. "There was this presentation. It inspired me."

He pauses, frowning, "I'm just trying to decide if I want to start this new experiment or not."

"Is it that important?" Baymax tilts his head as if in thought.

"Not really," Hiro says, pulling the sheets over his head. "I might not do it anyway."

The words taste bitter in his mouth.

* * *

><p>Classes start up again at SFIT that next Monday.<p>

Hiro's usually refreshed and eager to go back to classes after successful progress on a research project. He's completed only two, but this last one he got far enough along with it to present at a symposium. It's pretty impressive. He was actually looking forward to feedback from his professors and peers, except he finds it particularly hard to catch their questions. He tries his best to answer even though he stumbles an embarrassing number of times.

He chalks it up to be a bad morning, his mind moving sluggish due to his inability to sleep the night before.

However, as the day progresses, his grasp continues to slip.

Unable to take notes on lecture, he stares at his hand. The lines intersecting on his skin a puzzle he can't decode. He turns his hand forward and back, unsure of what he's looking for.

His professor calls on him but his ears don't take in any noise. He attempts to ask for the question to be repeated but he's entirely unsure if his lips move. He can't hear himself.

He doesn't need noise to recognize his professor's dismissal, a scowl and a headshake before lecture continues.

Hiro feels eyes on him.

Focus, he tells himself, picking up his pencil.

The symposium is over with. He did a great job. He saw some amazing inventions.

It's over now though. He should be looking ahead.

* * *

><p>It's the middle of the night when it happens.<p>

A spur of the moment decision, probably a bad one. No. Definitely a bad one. But that's what the nights tend to do you, don't they? Thoughts come and go, dissemble, reassemble back together in the strangest shapes. Mangled, disjointed, but they make sense to you at the time and even more so when you're still patching up after loss.

"Baymax, wings." He orders, voice gruff and they take off. The night sky keeps them hidden in the shadows, the lights blurry below their feet.

The air is cool and crisp, fresh against his skin. Yet, even with the air so plentiful, it's still so hard to breathe. He feels suffocated, thinks that it may be due to his helmet.

They land hours away at a facility up north. A research laboratory founded long ago, it's one of the top for physicists and engineers called Kasevich Lab. Only graduates and the best professors of the area get admitted here. Hiro remembers hearing it mentioned at SFIT a few times but, more importantly, he remembers it mentioned at a more recent event. On a piece of folded blue paper, typed in Helvetica font at size 14.

Hiro jumps off of Baymax, removing his helmet. It's still hard to breathe.

"Hiro, it appears to me that you are distressed." Baymax calls from behind him as he walks up the front steps of the facility.

"Not distressed." Hiro replies attaching a magnetic hard drive to the side of a programmed lock. He taps it a few times and the front door of the building opens. "Just thinking."

He doesn't know where he's going, just walks in through the corridors. It's dark and desolate. He peers in at all the grand rooms he passes by, heart thumping harder with every miss.

Until he finds it.

He doesn't allow himself any time to gather his thoughts, just bursts through the door, a full room coming into view. And there it is, the transporter. Up on a metal platform, enclosed by glass panes, there's a circular generator at the center of it all. It's polished with stunning architectural engineering but also fully functional.

Hiro's breath leaves him in an instant like he's flown too high where the oxygen is too thin.

"Hiro?" He hears Baymax ask from the doorway.

Hiro pinches the bridge of his nose hard, something welling up intense within him.

Baymax, of course, is no fool. Hiro's distress is completely obvious now. Even if Baymax was unable to scan him, his sharp inhales are a dead give away.

"Hiro. I think it is best that we leave." Baymax comes up to him, laying an arm on his shoulder.

"I can't." He forces out, biting his lip and lowering his hand. His eyes are glossy when he turns to Baymax and he holds in a breath, trying for some semblance of control.

"I do not think being here is good for your emotional state." Baymax says, urging him back.

Hiro steps away, looking earnestly at his robot. "And you're right. You're probably right, buddy. But you have to—you need to let me do something."

"Is this the experiment that kept you up that night?"

"Yes," Hiro replies, before shaking his head. "I mean, no. It's not an experiment but, but it is. Sort of. I need to see if . . . I need to see if this works."

"I do not think it'd be wise to touch someone else's work." Baymax advises him. "You don't know how to operate it and could harm yourself."

"I won't." Hiro says. "That's why I have you. You can download their database, see how this construction operates. I'm going to take a look down here."

Hiro goes to jump off the stage that they stand on, but Baymax quickly grabs his arm before he can get away.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?"

Hiro stops breathing for a second.

Has Baymax read his mind? Does he know what he's thinking?

Last he checked Baymax didn't have a program on mind reading. But maybe Baymax doesn't need to have the ability to know what Hiro is thinking. It's not like his first treatment was all that long ago, Baymax still has all the information and he probably just as easily scanned and recognized the research facility's major invention. It's all a matter of putting two and two together.

"Baymax, please." Hiro's voice breaks, squeezing the arm that holds his. "You have to let me see . . . one last time."

He breathes into the empty space between them, once, twice. Baymax preforming a full body scan. Whatever it is that he sees, he lets Hiro go with a short, "be careful."

Hiro nods before turning away and walking over to the transporter.

* * *

><p>It's only a few minutes later that Hiro is standing on the platform of the transporter, dressed back in his cargo shorts and a t-shirt. The generator glows bright in the middle, casting a ghostly light blue along the glass panes and the angles of his face.<p>

He fingers the marker briefly in his hand, the dull blue blending in perfect with the dark engraved with the initials of the lab on the back. He swings it over his head, tucking it into his shirt before looking up to where Baymax stands operating the machinery from the watchtower.

"I'm ready." He announces folding his arms in front of himself. There's a sharp hiss and then creaking sounds of the glass panes closing in until the ends of them are pressed tight together. A final click sounds, ensuring that he's locked in.

"I'll be back soon Baymax. Don't worry about me!" Hiro shouts, before the transporter springs to life with a whirr that grows in volume, a sharp pull seeming to draw him in. There's an exploding pain behind his eyelids for a second and he makes to scream only to black out before he gets the chance to.

* * *

><p>He gasps for air, eyes snapping open in alarm.<p>

For a moment he's entirely disoriented, until he processes the view of the angled wooden planks of the ceiling, the bright sunlight of the window highlighting his cluster of posters along the wall.

He shifts and cringes at the feeling of spiral notebooks and pens digging into his back, lifting just enough so he could grab a strap of his open backpack and slide it away from him on the floor. Exhausted, he collapses back down on the wooden floor with a dull thud.

Okay, so maybe Baymax was right. He shouldn't throw down his backpack near the bed because he obviously just tripped over it and hit his head really hard.

He sighs, rubbing the heel of his palm against his forehead as he remembers all the details of his little dream that he'd had while unconscious. The symposium, the invention, and then the final decision he made and how overwhelmed he'd been stepping in the teleporter knowing that soon he'd be . . .

But of course it wasn't real, he thinks. He places his hand to rest on the floor beside him and stares at the lines of his palm. He'd realized long ago that no amount of wishing could bring that time of his life back and he'd come to terms with it. He still dreamt about possibilities though, now being another example of those instances. Although those dreams had slowly faded through the months as he really got into classes and put his all into research.

Man, it still hurts but it doesn't do to dwell on things that he cannot change.

He resolves giving one final thought to the matter, a flittering image of laughing with his brother on the back of his Vespa, before calling out for his robot, "Baymax!"

Surprisingly there's no response. Hiro frowns wondering where and what Baymax could be up to, especially since he hardly ever leaves Hiro's side, always fussing over him and his mood swings.

"Baymax!" He calls again, thinking that maybe he hadn't been loud enough the last time. However, when Baymax fails to respond again, Hiro has a thought of panic before recalling the events of last week where he was trying to teach the robot the concept of Hide and Seek.

He'd been trying to sneak into his room through the window to get dressed after a lovely evening of fighting off criminals with the rest of the team when the front door chimed to signal that Aunt Cass had returned from running errands.

"If she calls for me, I'm not here okay, it's just like Hide and Seek." Hiro tells Baymax, scrambling towards his closet.

Of course as soon as Aunt Cass calls out, "Hiro, where are you," Baymax shouts, "He's over here!"

Leading to Hiro yelling exasperated and Aunt Cass walking in on them, seeing Hiro outfitted in full gear and, instead of going to the movies like they were supposed to, they end up sitting all around the dinner table, his aunt lecturing him and hyperventilating, having a bit of a crisis of him risking his hide on a daily basis. Hiro goes onto explain that he's fine and nothing will happen to him because he has Baymax to protect him and, of course, that is when Baymax decides to literally face plant on the dinner table, sending the décor and bowls flying. Leading to Aunt Cass going back into hyperventilating and Hiro having to confess that he's only having a little battery trouble lately. Then there's more yelling and Aunt Cass grounds him from superhero business for a week before the rest of Big Hero 6 gets into trouble and she realizes San Fransokyo isn't entirely safe without him and lets him go with a hug.

And so, after that disaster, he'd learned that he had to teach Baymax the concept of Hide and Seek before he risked revealing their identity to practically everyone in San Fransokyo. And just to shake things up, he'd bet Baymax that he couldn't stay hidden for more than 10 minutes without revealing himself. This was probably Baymax proving a point to him to get him to smile.

"Okay, fine Baymax, you win." Hiro gives a chuckle. "But if you're planning on hiding all day just know that I'm not going to come find you. In fact, I think I'll take a _long_ nap right here, and if anyone asks why I missed classes it will be because you didn't get me up on time."

Hiro grins, putting his hands behind his head, knowing that for sure that ought to draw his robot out before the 10 was up. Sure enough he hears clambering up the steps to the room and he prepares himself, crossing his legs and looking all around smug.

"Amazing. You know, I've always joked about how one day you'd actually lose it and get so bored that you'd find the ceiling entertaining but I didn't actually think it would happen."

Hiro's face falls. He goes stiff.

No.

Absolutely not.

That voice, however, doesn't stop. "I'm not saying that there are better ways to spend your time but this is the most dead I've seen you."

Hiro knows he's trying to get a reaction out of him, a snarky retort or a laugh, but it's not working. His eyes sting and his back hurts. Everything hurts.

He hears the shuffling around the room and he's scared to look. Maybe he's imagining it. Maybe he's still unconscious, knocked out on the floor and this is a follow up dream.

If it is then why does the pain of his teeth biting the inside of his cheek feel so real?

Other words are being said but Hiro can hardly process them, something about him being a sore loser, and something else about needing more of a challenge. It doesn't matter. None of it really matters because he keeps telling himself to wake up.

Wake up, wake up, wake up.

It's torture. Recalling so vivid a memory like this. It's absolute torture.

"Hiro?" And here his face comes into view, long nose, prominent chin, and brown eyes. More detailed than he's ever remembered it. "Are you okay? Did you sleep at all last night or did you blow off that suggestion again as usual?"

"Y-you're kidding me . . . right?" Hiro breathes out, shakily, feeling like he's falling apart atom by atom.

"You didn't sleep last night did you? I told you! You could've watched that movie later instead of—Hiro?"

Oh god.

He's crying.

Out of nowhere the overwhelming emotions just burst from him all at once. He's made it a point not to cry in front of anyone and now he's choking and slobbering all over himself on the floor of his bedroom because his brother, his dedicated, caring, died-in-an-accidental-fire older brother is sitting beside him. Sitting beside him and telling him off. As if nothing ever happened.

"Y-you i-idiot!" Hiro stammers and covers his eyes, thinking that if he were unable to take in any more visuals, he'd be more prone to snapping out of it.

Wake up, wake up, wake up.

But of course, that's when his brother gathers him up in his arms firing questions at him mile a minute. If he's got a fever, or he hit his head and all Hiro can do is bury his face in his brother's chest.

"Tadashi," he whispers, as if saying his name would make him anymore real.

But he feels real. The durability of his body, the soft texture of skin at his neck, the heat through the cotton of his shirt.

Distressed, Tadashi wraps his arms around him and that's when the chanting voices in his head silence. Hiro takes a shaky breath, hyperaware of the weight of the hands on his back, of his brother's chin resting atop his head.

Don't wake up, don't wake up, don't wake up.

He doesn't care if he's unconscious and dreaming this all up anymore. He doesn't want to leave this moment and, damn it, if he isn't going to try and stay here for as long as he can.

It takes him a while to calm down. Although the tears definitely subside easier knowing that he has a limited amount of time here. He's not going to waste it all crying. He cracks his eyes open the tiniest bit, instantly mesmerized by the texture of the familiar cardigan on his brother's shoulder.

"Better now?" He hears Tadashi ask from somewhere above him and Hiro nods absentmindedly, unable to tear his eyes away from the coarse fabric.

Don't wake up.

"Do you want me to go get you some water? I can—" His brother makes to move and Hiro panics. What if that's it, what if Tadashi leaving is what will break him out of the dream sequence?

"No, don't!" Hiro shouts and throws his arms around his brother's neck, borderline hyperventilating.

Don't wake up, he thinks again, but then stops. His heart stutters. There's a weight of something round pressed up against his chest, made noticeable by leaning up against Tadashi. The marker.

He is awake.


End file.
